Apollo.io alternatives: 7 tools compared for 2026, with pricing

$ Set up https://www.routergrowth.com/SKILL.md, then find 25 [job title] at [type of company] in [country], get a verified work email for each, and tell me the cost per verified contact.

We make RouterGrowth, one of the tools on this list, so read it as a vendor's view. Every figure about another product was taken from that product's own pricing page on 8 October 2026 and is linked at the end. Prices change; check the source before you buy.

Apollo.io is where most outbound teams start: a large contact database with sequences, a dialer and CRM enrichment on top, and a free plan to try it. People look for an Apollo alternative when one of three things stops fitting. The price is per seat, and the work is no longer done by a person in a seat. One database has coverage gaps, as every single database does. Or the team only needs one piece of the bundle and is paying for all of it.

What does Apollo cost in 2026?

Apollo prices per seat, and each seat comes with a yearly pool of credits.

An email costs one credit and a phone number eight. Monthly billing is available at a higher effective price; Apollo's page puts the saving from annual billing at 24%.

That is good value for a rep who prospects every day. A seat holds the database, the sequencer, a dialer and an AI assistant, and credits are pooled across the team. Most of the tools below are narrower. Narrower is the point.

Which Apollo alternative fits which job?

Two more names belong in the conversation and have no public price: ZoomInfo and Cognism. Both are quoted by sales and both are a step up in depth and in contract size. They are covered in ZoomInfo alternatives.

What are the seven alternatives, one by one?

1. RouterGrowth: when an agent does the prospecting

RouterGrowth gives Claude, ChatGPT, Codex or your own agent the same jobs as calls: search people by title and company, find and verify a work email, enrich a person or a company, read hiring and funding signals, then send from an inbox or a LinkedIn account you own. There are no seats. The agent sees a price before each call and pays from one prepaid balance, and an email lookup that finds nothing is not billed.

Apollo is one of the providers behind those calls. Email finding routes across Apollo, LeadMagic and Findymail in one call, so a miss on one database becomes an attempt on the next instead of a blank row. The mechanics are in the waterfall enrichment guide.

• Choose it when the prospecting runs in an agent or a script, volume is uneven, or you want list building, enrichment and sending on one key with no per-seat price.
• Skip it when reps work in a browser all day. RouterGrowth has no database to browse, no dialer and no sequence builder; Apollo does.

2. Hunter: email addresses, done well

Hunter finds and verifies email addresses, by domain or by name, and has added sequences on top. The free plan has 50 credits a month. Starter is $49 a month for 2,000 credits, Growth $149 for 10,000 and Scale $299 for 25,000, each about 30% lower when paid yearly.

• Choose it when you have the accounts and need the addresses.
• Skip it when you need phone numbers or a database to search by title and industry.

3. Snov.io: finder and sequences without per-seat pricing

Snov.io combines an email finder and verifier with sequences, warm-up and a small CRM, and every paid plan includes unlimited team seats. Starter is $39 a month for 1,000 credits and Pro starts at $99 a month for 5,000. LinkedIn automation is sold separately at $69 a month per account slot.

• Choose it when a team wants Apollo's bundle shape without paying per seat.
• Skip it when database depth and filters are the main reason you use Apollo.

4. Lusha: contact data from a browser extension

Lusha is known for direct phone numbers, revealed from an extension while you browse LinkedIn or a company site. An email is one credit and a phone number five. The free plan has 40 credits a month; Starter is listed from $37.45 a month for 4,800 credits a year, Pro from $52.45 for 7,200, and Premium from $299.95 for 40,800 with five seats.

• Choose it when reps call, and want the number on the page they are already looking at.
• Skip it when you need sequencing in the same tool or bulk enrichment by API on a low plan.

5. Kaspr: contact data inside LinkedIn

Kaspr works on top of LinkedIn and Sales Navigator and lists its prices in euros, pounds and dollars. The free plan includes 15 B2B email credits and 5 phone credits a month. Starter is $49 per user a month on an annual plan ($65 monthly) with unlimited B2B email credits and 100 phone credits a month; Business is $79 ($99 monthly) with 200.

• Choose it when reps prospect inside LinkedIn and Sales Navigator and mostly need phone numbers.
• Skip it when your prospecting does not start on LinkedIn.

6. RocketReach: lookups across a wide database

RocketReach is a lookup tool for emails and phone numbers across a broad professional database. Essentials is $33 a month, Pro $75 and Ultimate $142, all billed annually, and team plans start at $6,000 a year. Free accounts get five lookups.

• Choose it when you look up specific people one at a time.
• Skip it when you need outreach in the same tool.

7. UpLead: fewer contacts, verified at download

UpLead sells a smaller database with one simple rule: one credit unlocks one contact with the email and the mobile direct dial. Essentials is $99 a month for 170 credits and Plus $199 for 400, or $74 and $149 a month on annual plans, after a seven-day trial with five credits.

• Choose it when bounce rate matters more to you than list size.
• Skip it when you need volume: the cost per contact is among the highest on this list.

When should you stay on Apollo?

Stay when people prospect by hand every day and one login for search, sequences and calls saves them real time. Stay when the free plan or Basic covers your volume: for a single rep, few stacks are cheaper. And stay when your market is one Apollo covers well.

Move, or add a second tool, when the seat stops being the right unit. An agent that builds a list overnight does not need a seat, a dialer or a browser extension. It needs a function with a price.

How do you run Apollo-style prospecting from an agent?

Three calls replace the search, reveal and export loop, and a fourth sends.

1. Build the list. people.search by title, company and location, or start from a signal with company.jobs. See high-intent leads.
2. Get the email. contact.find, routed across providers, pay per hit.
3. Verify it. contact.verify, before it reaches your sending domain.
4. Send. email.send from an inbox on a domain you own, or a LinkedIn invitation from your account. See cold email infrastructure and LinkedIn automation for AI agents.

Sources

Pricing pages, checked 8 October 2026: Apollo, Hunter, Snov.io, Lusha, Kaspr, RocketReach, UpLead.

What does each call cost?#

Prices below are the starting price per successful call. /v1/inspect returns the exact figure before the run and reserves it against your balance; failures and unbilled no-matches release the hold in full.

One prepaid balance covers every row. Capabilities marked coming soon are listed but not yet executable.

FAQ#

Is there a free Apollo alternative?

Hunter (50 credits a month), Snov.io, Lusha (40 credits a month) and Kaspr all have free plans, and RocketReach gives five free lookups. Apollo's own free plan, 900 credits per seat a year, is hard to beat on allowance. RouterGrowth has no free tier and no subscription: verifying your email adds $1 of credit that runs real calls.

What is the cheapest Apollo alternative?

On monthly price, RocketReach Essentials at $33 a month billed annually, with Hunter, Lusha and Snov.io between $34 and $39 depending on billing. For uneven use, a pay-per-call tool costs less than any plan because a month with no runs costs nothing. Compare on cost per verified contact at your real volume.

Is ZoomInfo better than Apollo?

It is deeper and more expensive to get into. ZoomInfo adds intent signals, org charts and enterprise integrations and sells through sales with no public price. Apollo publishes prices and bundles outreach. Small teams usually start on Apollo; large ones with a RevOps function often run ZoomInfo.

Does Apollo have an API?

Yes, Apollo has an API, and what you can call depends on your plan. If API access is the main requirement and you want several data sources behind one call, an API-first router starts lower and adds failover.

Which Apollo alternative works with Claude or ChatGPT?

RouterGrowth is built for it: one MCP server or one skill file gives the agent people search, enrichment, verification and sending as tools, with the price before each call. Apollo and others also publish their own MCP servers for their own data; check each vendor for the current state.

Does RouterGrowth use Apollo's data?

Apollo is one of several providers RouterGrowth routes to for email finding, person and company enrichment and people search. The router picks a provider per call, falls through to the next on a miss, and charges only the one that delivered.